Quartz 5

Standalone Client Design

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Standalone Client Design & Challenges

This document outlines the gameplay loops, content, anti-cheat mitigations, and database optimization strategies for the Standalone Client and Twitch Extension.

🔁 The Split Gameplay Loop (Extension vs. Standalone)

To avoid frustrating non-paying viewers while still making the standalone game highly valuable, we split progression mechanics by Scale, Quality, and Environment.

graph TD
    subgraph Twitch Extension (Free Play)
        A[Gather Raw Materials] --> B[Standard Co-op Crafting]
        B -->|Result| C[Default Quality Items]
        C -->|Equip| D[Overlay Battles]
    end

    subgraph Standalone Game Client (Premium Play)
        A --> E[Personal Estate & Vaults]
        E -->|Active Skill Minigames| F[High-Quality Gear Tiers]
        E -->|Solo Dungeons & Bosses| G[Exclusive Artifact Materials]
        F & G -->|Result| H[Legendary Artifacts & Top-Tier Gear]
        H -->|Equip| D
    end

1. Twitch Extension (Co-op & Basic Crafting)

  • The Experience: Free viewers have full access to gathering, basic combat, and co-op room upgrades.
  • Crafting: Viewers can queue items to refine or craft using the streamer’s active rooms.
  • Limitations: Capped at Standard Quality (Common/Uncommon), queue sizes are limited, and processing takes longer.

2. Standalone Client (Premium Sandbox)

  • The Experience: Players have a private estate/farm, access to solo dungeons, and player markets.
  • Crafting: Access to active skill minigames allowing players to craft high-tier gear (Rare, Epic, Legendary).
  • Dungeons: Side-scrolling adventure zones containing rare resources (like Starsteel or Dragon Scales) that do not drop on Twitch.

🏆 The Artifact Registry (Truly Unique Items)

To give players a sense of ultimate achievement and allow the community to track prestigious items, we implement Serialized Artifacts.

  • The Curator Pool: The game defines a fixed list of unique Legendary Artifacts (e.g. “Excalibur”, “Soul Reaper”).
  • Serial Numbers: When an Epic/Legendary craft succeeds under perfect minigame conditions (or as a rare dungeon boss drop), it generates a serialized instance (e.g. *Excalibur 004).
  • Prestige Tracking:
    • The central database stores these in a lightweight artifacts table.
    • A public web leaderboard shows who currently owns which serial number, when it was crafted, and which streamer’s canvas it was last seen on.
    • This prevents database bloat because the total pool of serialized artifacts is strictly limited by rarity.

🔒 Security: “Ghost Nerfing” & Item Sinks

Timing-based minigames are vulnerable to PC macros and autoclickers. Instead of blocking suspected accounts (which causes cheaters to simply modify their scripts), we implement Ghost Nerfing.

1. The Brittle/Hacked Flag

  • If the server’s timing verification seed detects impossible reaction times (e.g. consistent sub-5ms variations), the crafted item is silently flagged in the database: is_hacked = true.
  • In-Game Consequences:
    • The item visually looks identical to a standard item (no warning is shown).
    • Statistically, the item suffers from severe hidden debuffs: it misses 50% more often, deals minimum roll damage, and has a massively inflated break chance.

2. The Brittle Break System (Economy Sink)

To continuously drain the economy of surplus weapons, armor, and hacked items without overloading the database with durability updates:

  • No Durability Ticks: We do not update a durability: 98/100 field on every attack (which generates too many database writes).
  • Probability-Based Shattering: On every attack roll, hit, or block:
    • Standard Items have a tiny chance to shatter (e.g., ).
    • Hacked Items have an extremely high chance to shatter (e.g., ).
  • Shatter Event: When triggered, the database entry is deleted, the item disappears, and the Godot client plays a “Weapon Shattered!” visual effect, prompting the viewer to seek a replacement.

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